


A Collection of Short Stories

by ellanorr



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-06-17 18:26:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15467349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellanorr/pseuds/ellanorr





	1. World of Words

HOSPITAL INTAKE FORM I  
Name: Camille Iris Cooper  
Date: 5/8/2018  
Age: 16  
Gender: Female  
Birthday: 4/4/2002  
Hair: Brown  
Eye: Green  
Height: 5”7  
Weight: 135 lbs.  
Disease: Delusional.

I could feel everything. The scratching of the doctor’s pencil on the paper bored into my skull, his words and measurements seared into my brain. I shook my head violently, desperately trying to force the words I couldn’t control out of my brain and into the world. They hung stubbornly to my lips, balancing on the end of my tongue and sliding off my lips back down my throat.  
It was like choking, I decided, lying on the bed as they strapped me down, medication not sufficient to my pain. The meds would do nothing to the words, if not egg them on. The shocks were gentle at first, a momentary glimpse into a word-free world where I could live in peace, but the shocks soon burst the bubble of safety into which the momentarily distracting pain had coaxed my brain.  
The pain that replaced the calm was as if the words had decided to prance around my brain, jumping and kicking and screaming for the pain of it. And I felt the other words resting heavy in my mouth, pulling my jaw slack as another wordless scream was torn my body. The doctors kept notes, their sick interest in the workings of my brain on the forefront of their minds.  
Toffee, I decided, was the taste of the nastier words. Pain, for one, then anger and fear. Another scream left my shattered body held down solely by the heaviness of the words, pain, anger, and fear following it.  
Tears with sadness and regret streaking down my face, I cried, for the pain and weight of the words I couldn’t say. The sweeter words - sweetheart and daughter and hope – took their time to reach my mouth and defined the apex of my pain with the sweet bliss that blinded the pain, anger, and fear that fell from my lips.  
Words that tied me down to the bed with their weight - sorry and apologize and wait - were painted over the thick leather cuffs strapping me to the bed. As the nurses shooed the doctors out of the room, harsh words then quickly wound their way up, seeping in through my skin and joining the words they liked. The weighted words also returned to my body, rushing through my fingertips, swirling around my brain, and tumbling out of my mouth in mutters of sorry and apologize and wait, and the nurse just continued along with her business, wiping the blood from the corners of my mouth, taking hope and kind and daughter with the pain and regret.  
The doctors say I am the perfect example of words gone wrong, of neglect and abuse, of pain and suffering, an untouched scientific sample of ‘trapped in her own head.’ I agree, silently, the streams of yes, yes, yes, and now help flowing out with my screams.  
The nurse draws me to my feet, failing as usual to notice as the dizzy and no and pain drop from my lips. She walks me to my room; the harsh white walls are softened by the patience and clean that seem to carpet the floor, which comfort me. As the nurse leaves, I’m sitting on my bed clutching the blanket that had, at one time, a word of comfort on it. A word that I cannot read, an irony that haunts the words. Comfort and relaxed haunt me, tickling my throat, lingering but never allowing me to get a taste.  
The smells of septic and peroxide bleach my nostrils, chasing away the remnants of comfort and relaxed. Maybe one day, I remind myself, I may be able to understand the word on the blanket. Maybe one day, I may remember my name. Maybe I’ll remember my mother or father. At the mention of mother, the door to my room opens gently, putting me on edge.  
Nobody ever opens doors gently, this is a hospital, they are busy. The light from the door is warm, a yellowing light I can barely remember. Hair, then, in a long dark braid, a glimpse of a face, like mine, but older, more refined. Words stream through the crack as it widens, welcome and comfort and joy overshadow the goodbye and leaving and gone.  
A person, this time, complete and smiling, happy dancing around their figure. Beautiful and angel fall from my lips, floating through the air and landing in the woman’s palm. A handshake, fingertips brisling with welcome and happiness. My arm raises, my muscles surprised not to meet a heavy word, lighter and free hanging on for the first time I can remember.  
We shake, and my hand remains in hers. A pull to my feet unaccompanied by dizzy or no or pain feels weird, what and confusion and how dripping from my mouth, splattering onto the floor to form answers. I feel a weight over my shoulders and brace for pain, anger, regret, surprised instead for the volley of relax, comfort, and calm I receive instead. It’s a good weight, I decided, surrounded by calm and peace. The door opens once more, the pale-yellow light shining into a world I have seen never before. Heaven, at last.  
Books, row upon row upon row, billions of words swirling and spiraling and spinning all around. The words of regret, pain, anger and weight that have haunted me for as long as I can remember fly up, away a waterfall of pain nobody should have to bear streaming from my mouth. I turn, remembering, to the blanket, my only worry amidst the calm. A glance, confusion, then another look. The blanket, folded, words on top.  
I love you, Camilla,  
My daughter dearest.  
Good luck to you in  
This world of words.  
At last, love, the word I’d forgotten.


	2. No Longer Alone

Sitting alone in the empty apartment, the man looked down at the bottom of his glass. Nearly empty, the glass still held a bit of alcohol, as it had for the past few hours. The man lifted the glass to his lips and took a long, slow sip. He swallowed the amber liquid, grimacing at the taste of the liquor on his tongue. It no longer sat as a simmer of bubbly honey, no longer held the calming effect of drunkenness. Behind the man, there was an open window, high above the busy city. 

The man abandoned his glass and his stool, favoring instead the cool, quiet air of the balcony. Sitting, alone, behind the rail of the balcony, high above the city, it was easy for the man to forget about his troubles and get caught up in the beauty of a busy city. He watched the policemen chase the pickpockets who slipped and slid around the wealthy, watched the thieves hand beggars on the street coins as they hid amongst the huddled masses. 

The man had never known that life, but yet it held a scalding familiarity he was not happy to possess. He was reminded daily by the small children whose puppy dog eyes brought in a pretty penny of his own two children, carried off by the winter frost before age six. Sad smiles from sick children haunted his memory. The empty armchair by his side his wife’s old throne from where they and their two little daughters admired the city, the only home they’d ever known. 

If the man craned his neck just a little, the steeple of the church whose graveyard contained his love would be visible, and a tear would leave a streak down his face. Memory after memory, aided by the alcohol would rise to the surface, the face of a man burdened with pain after pain twisting in agony. His hands shake and stutter, his voice stumbling over names whispered as both a comfort and as a curse. 

He knows in his heart that they are gone but they seem so close. A veil separates the living from the dead. This he knows, but the ones he loves do not know. Their shadows dance in the dark, their fancy costumes shimmer in the dim lighting of the bedroom. Their figures prance around furniture no longer in its place. On the bed in the center of the room sits the man, an open window abandoned despite the cold air rushing in. 

The bed is the only place their shadows never near. They are afraid of the man, the man who lives on and on and on. His family stands around the bed as the man’s eyes shut for the final time. “Death doesn’t discriminate,” he whispers, “Between the sinners and the saints, it takes, and it takes, and it takes,” his mouth barely moves now, his words a hushed melody, “I keep living anyway, I rise, and I fall, and I break, I make my mistakes. But if there is a reason that I am still alive when everyone who loves me has died, then I’m willing to wait for it.” 

The man died that night, surrounded by the shadows of his family, welcomed into the world of the dead like an old friend. He was happy, then, finally reunited with his wife, his queen, and his two little princesses.

For some, happiness is only found in death. For some, death is a quiet snuff of a candle and a forgotten shell of a person.


	3. Silence

Silence. A word that means many things to many people. To some, it is a reminder of things yet to come. To some, it is a reminder of the daily nightmare they walk, remembering the horrors of their pasts. To some, it is a quiet calm, with only the faint and gentle humming of their pulse echoing in their heads. 

To me, it exists in the steady stream of sunlight through my window on an early Sunday morning in the summer when church is not an option, though if it had been, a different form of silence between prayers would have been strung through the air like a laundry line, awaiting the prayers of the people to be pinned up like clothes upon its thin wire, but church is not a requirement this particular Sunday, so we sleep past dawn until the sun pours through the window and the room exists in a separate plane of mental reality, the quiet of the morning perhaps the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. Laying in bed, I can stare up at the ceiling, listening blissfully to the sound of nothing, my favorite thing on a relaxed morn when nothing calls my name. 

Then the beautiful silence so dear to me shatters when I sit up and rejoin the waking world. Breakfast is a meal to be had, gathered around the table as the laughter of my family begins to circle around the house like the birds circling the trees outside, whose early morning chirps can barely be heard over the clinking of the spoons on the bottom of our cereal bowls and the hum of the sink as we wash out the glasses that once held milk. 

All through this, I’ve not said a word, preferring to just listen to the sounds of the house stirring. And then my dog barks and it’s like the din of my family’s morning suddenly gives way to the morning rush, as usual. The bell tower at Rhodes chimes 7:00 am and my family is whipped into a frenzy, brushing our teeth in the three separate sinks, and slipping on shoes with worn down soles.

We march out the door with skillful synchronicity, the harsh slam of the front door putting an end to the silence of the Sunday. ‘Off to run errands’ says my mom, voice raised over the rumbling of the engine and my brother's shriek of ‘I call the front seat!’ that stings my ears, so accustomed to the silence I very much prefer. As I click my seatbelt shut and the car pulls away from the curb, in going my earbuds as I watch the world fly by my window, the music of my waking hours drowning out the noise and the complaints the world presses upon me, allowing me to savor the scarce sound of silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review! This is a little project of mine that I've been working on... I'd love to hear some opinions. I do have 14,000 ish word story, should I add that one? It's set in the Marvel Universe so...


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